- Tesla will "keep blowing our minds" despite Elon Musk's focus on Twitter, a Tencent executive said.
- "I would count on them [Tesla] to keep blowing our minds with what they do with technology," David Wallerstein said.
Tesla is going to "keep blowing our minds" despite Elon Musk's focus on Twitter, according to a Tencent executive.
"I would count on them [Tesla] to keep blowing our minds with what they do with technology," said Tencent's chief exploration officer David Wallerstein in a CNBC interview Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The Chinese tech giant is a backer of Tesla, having picked up a 5% stake in the automaker in 2017 for around $1.8 billion – an investment led by Wallerstein.
"We saw a huge potential in the company, the category of EVs (electric vehicles) but also a huge amount of respect for the way Elon was driving the company," Wallerstein said, adding that when Tencent invested in Tesla, it wasn't clear whether the electric-vehicle manufacturer was going to survive.
Since the 2017 investment, Tesla has risen to become one of the world's largest electric-vehicle companies.
But the firm has had a rough time lately. It notched a historically bad 2022, missing its production and delivery targets in the fourth quarter and Musk's chaotic Twitter buyout. The combination of factors caused Tesla's stock to drop 60% in less than four months to wipe out $700 billion in market capitalization.
Musk's Twitter purchase has rattled Tesla investors as they fear he's too distracted with new responsibilities at the social media giant.
But Wallerstein said he remains confident in Tesla despite Musk's distractions with Twitter. "Certainly, if a leader is distracted across many companies it's hard to focus and Elon has a lot of projects. I think they're still doing great work," he said.